Santhana Bharathi

Santhana Bharathi Biography

Santhana Bharathi is a veteran director and actor associated with Tamil film industry. Started with directing movies he switched on to acting later. He is best known for his association with director P. Vasu during his early days and the duo has given many memorable movies to Tamil cinema in the early 1980s. The duo worked together during the period – 1981 to 1985 and delivered one movie every year - Panneer Pushpangal, Madhu Malar, Mella Pesungal, Sahasame Jeevitham and Needhiyin Nizhal. Later he worked as an independent film director for one decade and moved to character roles on silver screen. His son, Sanjay Bharathi is a budding actor of Tamil films.

Santhana Bharathi belongs to Rajakkapatti of Dindigul district, Tamil Nadu in a filmy family. His father, M.R. Santhanam, had acted in the Boys Company. Later he started a production company and has made some of Sivaji Ganesan's best films like Pasamalar. Bharathi entered film industry to become a director and he started assisting Sridhar with the recommendation of Kannadasan. P. Vasu later joined the unit. His association with P. Vasu began in those days and they became good friends. Together they made the first film - `Panneer Pushpangal' which was a box office hit. The lead pair was Suresh and Santhi Krishna. They later directed four more movies together. Later P. Vasu went on to become one of the greatest directors of Tamil cinema.

As an independent director, Santhana Bharathi made a few films during the time 1987-1995, starting with Kadamai Kanniyam Kattupaadu in 1987, which introduced Satyaraj as hero. Guna and Mahanadi, both starring Kamal Hassan are his best movies and the later won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Tamil for the year 1994. He has directed 8 movies independently. He is active in the films as a character artist since 1991. Now he is a full time actor and has acted in about 80 fi

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Updated: January 18, 2016